Ripple (XRP)

What Is Ripple

Ripple is a real-time gross settlement system, currency exchange and remittance network originally created by Ripple Labs Inc. in 2012. Ripple aims to connect banks and payment providers via RippleNet to provide more efficient transactions between the global financial institutions.

Ripple Vs XRP

However, it should be noted that Ripple, the technology company, and XRP, the independent digital asset, are distinctly different. While the company is providing services for financial institutions, XRP can be used as a settlement currency by Ripple’s clients, but doing so is not obligatory. 

DLT

Ripple is one of the only companies out there that utilize DLT technology to solve real problems for real customers. The company is taking time to develop network effects among its users, adding about two customers (B2B) per week. With over various banking and financial partners connected through RippleNet already.

John Mitchell

John is the SVP of Global Sales at Ripple. Prior to joining Ripple, he led global sales for Reval, the world-leader in SaaS Treasury Management Systems for large international corporations and transaction banking. He started his career in finance with IBM, subsequently moving into direct sales. John has over 25 years leadership experience in selling complex enterprise software to banks, covering capital markets, payments, AML and liquidity. John has established successful businesses in North America, EMEA, SE Asia, Japan and Mainland China as well as having worked for three listed companies.

Monica Long

Monica Long is SVP of Marketing and Communications at Ripple. Throughout her career, Monica has helped technology companies drive fundamental change in the financial industry. Before joining Ripple, Monica worked in corporate communications at Intuit. Prior to that, she supported startup clients in various B2B and B2C sectors, with several in fintech, including Prosper.

Kanaan

Kanaan is the SVP of Engineering at Ripple. He started his career developing medical imaging systems at Cerner Corporation. He has led and grew teams at Yelp and Quantcast that were responsible for syndication partnerships, business analytics, internal applications, and data pipelines.

Kahina Van Dyke

Kahina is SVP of Business and Corporate Development at Ripple. Prior to Ripple, Kahina lead Global Financial Services and built the global payments partnerships teams at Facebook. She has held executive global roles at MasterCard and Citibank mostly on international assignments. In addition, Kahina is a non-executive board director of Progressive Insurance company. She brings a depth of industry knowledge combined with a track record launching innovative solutions with partners. She is passionate about accelerating the next generation of global financial services and payments to serve people, business and communities around the world.

Asheesh Birla

Asheesh is the SVP of Product at Ripple, which he first joined in 2013 to lead the development of their product suite. Asheesh is an industry expert on blockchain and is a frequent contributor, speaker, and advisor on blockchain and cryptocurrency. Asheesh started his career as an entrepreneur 15 years ago in Silicon Valley, where he founded a content management company that he later sold to Thomson Reuters, becoming their VP of Global Technology in 2005. After leaving Thomson Reuters in 2010, Asheesh advised and led product design at a number of startups in Silicon Valley. Most recently, Asheesh was included in 2018’s The Ledger 40 under 40, assembled by Fortune Magazine to recognize the superstars transforming business at the leading edge of finance and technology.

David Schwartz

David Schwartz is Chief Technology Officer at Ripple. David is one of the original architects of the Ripple consensus network. Prior to joining Ripple, David Schwartz was Chief Technical Officer for WebMaster Incorporated, a Santa Clara software developer. He developed encrypted cloud storage and enterprise messaging systems for organizations like CNN and the National Security Agency (NSA). Known as “JoelKatz,” he is a respected voice in the digital currency community.

Brad Garlinghouse

Brad is the CEO of Ripple and a member of the Board of Directors. Prior to Ripple, Brad served as the CEO of file collaboration service Hightail. From 2009 to 2012 he was President of Consumer Applications at AOL and prior to that he held various executive positions at Yahoo! from 2003 to 2009, including Senior Vice President. Earlier in his career, Brad helped to pioneer the VoIP industry as CEO of Dialpad Communications. He currently serves on the Board of Directors of OutMatch and has held board positions at Ancestry.com and Tonic Health.

Low commission currency exchange.

There are many currencies that can’t be directly converted to each other. So, banks need to use the US dollar as a mediator. So, there is a double commission: converting currency A to USD and USD to currency B. Ripple is a mediator too, but much cheaper than USD.

Fast international transactions.

The average transaction time is 4 seconds. Compare it to an hour or more for Bitcoin and a few days for regular banking systems.

Payment ecosystem.

Users can basically issue their own currency for fast and cheap transactions. Simple as that.

XRP is a token used for representing the transfer of value across the Ripple Network. The main purpose of XRP is to be a mediator for other - both cryptocurrencies and fiat - exchanges.  Unlike the case with other cryptos, one cannot mine XRP. Contrary to popular belief, XRP currency is different than the Ripple protocol. XRP is a token or a native currency that works under Ripple Transaction Protocol. XRP protects the Ripple network from DDOS attacks and prevents spam. XRP also uses a deflationary model, with a certain amount of XRP being destroyed to cover transaction fees. Currently, the default transaction fee is 0.00001 XRP.

The XRP token is the native asset of the XRP ledger. XRP is required for the ledger to work, it is also needed for trust lines, reserves, escrow, trades among other things.

The needs of individuals and businesses sending cross-border payments have dramatically evolved over the years. There is a growing need for real-time, low-cost and fully trackable payments on a global scale. Yet, today’s global payments infrastructure yields an experience that is slow, costly and opaque. Ripple solves these pain points through RippleNet, a network of banks, payment providers and others. Employing Ripple’s solutions and a standardized ruleset allows for those connected on RippleNet to efficiently send and receive payments around the world.

Ripplenet

RippleNet allows its users to gain a single point of access into a global network of institutions using standard rules, formats, and governance.   Payments within the network ar routed efficiently, leveraging instant settlement to transact in seconds, instead of days.  Furthermore, the network allows for optimization of end-to-end visibility of fees, delivery time, status and customer information through a bidirectional messenger API.  While reducing total payment costs by minimizing capital requirements and lowering processing costs.

The RippleNet Rulebook

The RippleNet Rulebook provides operational standardization. The Rulebook is a legal framework about the rights, obligations and business rules of network participants. RippleNet’s standardized technology infrastructure complements the Rulebook. RippleNet utilizes a single and decentralized infrastructure across the entire network, eliminating the need for custom integration work. Together, the Rulebook and technology infrastructure create global consistency, making it easy for RippleNet customers to transact with new partners.

There are two ways to access RippleNet, either with a Standard Access plan or a Full Access plan, depending on the client’s needs.`

The first thing to know is that Ripple is both a platform and a currency. The Ripple platform is an open source protocol which is designed to allow fast and cheap transactions.

Bitcoin was never intended to be a simple payment machine, Ripple, on the other hand, is definitely the go-to protocol for all the international transactions worldwide, having established dozens of partnerships with multiple well known international payment processors, banks and corporations.

The platform has its own currency (XRP) but also allows everybody to use the platform to create their own via RippleNet.

“Ripple is a real-time gross settlement system (RTGS), currency exchange and remittance network by Ripple. Also called the Ripple Transaction Protocol (RTXP) or Ripple protocol, it is built upon a distributed open source Internet protocol, consensus ledger and native cryptocurrency called XRP (ripples).

Released in 2012, Ripple purports to enable “secure, instantly and nearly free global financial transactions of any size with no chargebacks.”

It supports tokens representing fiat currency, cryptocurrency, commodity or any other unit of value such as frequent flier miles or mobile minutes.

 At its core, Ripple is based around a shared, public database or ledger, which uses a consensus process that allows for payments, exchanges and remittance in a distributed process.”

Ledger

And of course, for a hardware wallet, we recommend you use the Ledger Nano S

As for using the Nano Ledger S, the first step towards setting up your device is unboxing your device and checking if you have received all the accessories with the device. Once you have unboxed your device, you need to configure it and initialize it before being able to use it. The process is quite simple and will hardly take about 20-30 minutes post which you will be set to use your Ledger Nano S device. This video does a pretty good job of explaining how the setup works. The device itself may come at a price but the security it provides is priceless, especially when it comes to storing large amounts. Definitely consider getting one of those as it supports over 700 different cryptos and is currently one of the best cold-storage devices on the market.

For mobile/desktop wallets, our choices are Toast Wallet and Guarda

Toast Wallet

Toast wallet provides both mobile and desktop wallets for various types of users to store their Ripple cryptocurrency. Also, it a free to use open source XRP Wallet for iOS, Android, Windows, Mac, and Linux. And the developers believe that they have created a cross-platform XRP wallet that’s simple enough for your grandma but safe enough for a Swiss banker.

Furthermore, you're in control of your funds. The wallet is non-custodial so the only one who's got their hands on your private keys is you.

Guarda

Guarda is also a great choice, it is also a non-custodian wallet. It also has a web version but we highly recommend that you use the desktop variation, as it is quite lightweight and far more secure.

Exarpy

For an online wallet, our choice is Exarpy.

It is a non-custodial, fast, and secure way to handle your XRP funds but remember that this isn't a cold-storage wallet, so you should not hold a significant amount of Ripple in it. Another important thing to keep in mind before choosing this wallet is that it isn't free, charging a flat service fee of 0.025 XRP per transaction (for transferring and importing). This fee includes the Ripple network transaction cost.

There's one major difference when it comes to storing conventional cryptos and XRP.  Unlike Bitcoin wallets which are free, Ripple wallets require you to have 20XRP to book your wallet address. So for example, adding 100 XRP to a wallet will result in you only getting 80XRP as 20 was used to book the wallet. This is why you need to choose your wallet carefully and not spend your precious coins jumping from wallet to wallet.

For buying with a credit/debit card or bank transfer, we recommend using either Coinbase or Paybis.

Coinbase

Coinbase is a convenient and cheap way to buy XRP (if available in your country). Coinbase will charge a fee of between 1.49% and 3.99% depending on your payment method (credit cards have a higher fee than wire transfers). The buying process itself is very simple. Just create an account and add your payment method, then go to the Buy/Sell section and simply input the amount you wish to buy. You'll have to go to a quick verification before doing this, however, so have your phone and ID ready.

Paybis

Paybis is another broker that offers purchases with credit/debit card. Just keep in mind that fees are 10% per transaction. While more expensive to use than Coinbase, its a good alternative as Coinbase is not accessible worldwide.